Film Critic Apologizes for Epic Plagiarism, Will Continue to Review Anyway

Back in 2006, it turned out that I was among several film writers whose reviews had been plagiarized by a University of Missouri student. The culprit, one Samir Patel, then apologized and resigned from his school paper; I'm not sure what became of his college career after that.

Cut to 2010, when the news of an English video reviewer's similar actions broke, bloggers all over Twitter were quick to verify the individual instances of Tom Perkins' quite substantial plagiarism. Perkins was quick to deny it before pulling the videos and issuing an apology, though his apology (which the oft-copied JoBlo.com shared) insisted that he did it because "YouTube has become so easily corruptible these days I kind of wanted to see how corruptible it can be."

It's strange to see plagiarism persist in an environment where it really is as easy as a Google search to reveal one's misdeeds (that's how both were spotted). News of Perkins' behavior spread much faster thanks to Twitter and he was quickly made an example of, but without the accountability of print, there's no way of forcing Perkins to step down or be held fiscally responsible as Patel had been.

If anything, Perkins' latest Tweet seems to rub that in: "Just to let everyone know that doesn't hate me as much as the Twilight Saga. I will still be making my video reviews." That may be true, but let's just see how his view counts fare after this.